WYWH

Wish you were here.

Sue left for Mexico yesterday for five days. I saw her off at the airport, and thanks to the T running late, we just were able to get her boarding passes and then off to the gate. So, Bob and I are back to our bachelor days, already slipping back into old habits acquired from living and being alone.

It's not bad, I'm just saying life is different without her. When you're not sharing a space, and especially a life, with another person, particularly another person who you love, you tend to focus on yourself, and just like those lists where you write out 25 Random Things About Yourself, it all gets pretty boring after awhile.

I'm sorry, I'm just one of those people who not only believes, but lives his life feeling that if you're not sharing it and your experiences with someone else, it all gets a little pointless. A little dull. This is just me: But I've spent way too much of my time alone or doing things by myself. I've overcome the fear and discomfort in my younger years of doing things alone in public like going to movies and out to dinner by myself to prove I don't need someone else. I've hiked and camped and traveled alone, and scraped and struggled through personal difficulties alone, proving I really don't need anyone else to get along in this world. I like people and I like talking to people and interacting with them. And if you take that to its furthest appeal, to feel completely content, I like intimately sharing my life with a woman.

I'm not some right-wing, Bible-thumping fundamentalist either. I think anyone who can find happiness in this world, anyway with anyone they can is all right by me. And I know there are people who don't have the same needs I have. Some people enjoy living alone. Some people are so wrapped up in their own lives (and I know that the way I worded it is is mildly pejorative) they don't have time or energy for someone else. They think it's a burden. A person becomes an obligation which, to my way of thinking, is one of the worst things a person can be. Yeah, a person who lives like that is a little selfish, if not a lot of selfish. There's no law against it.

But right now it's a bit after 8:00 in the morning and I'm sitting on the couch where I (and Sue) always sit in the morning with our coffee and it's just not the same. (Something About What Happens When We Talk. Lucinda Williams. I've posted the YouTube vid and lyrics before, so if you want you can look them up.)

And maybe I'm being melodramatic, or I'm thinking too much; I've been accused of both--usually by people whose heads would start to ache after a bit of mental exercise--but I am an actor and I do have an IQ of 135. In the past I've dumbed down to so many people, and finally a good doctor said to me, John, you're just going to have to get used to the fact that you're smart. It's not easy being different in this society; you're never accepted for who you are. So because of some God-given talent I have, and an ability to achieve a high score on a Western, white-dominated testing model, I am able to see and understand some things that others can't. And so I can put myself in a time and a place where Sue isn't in my life, and I don't like it one bit. It's how I can tell I love her to death and the life that we have.

So today is a day like so many I've had before. There are deadlines to make (I am a writer, too, which means if you give me a deadline I'll go right up to it.) There is music to study, not the least is the song that inspired this post. There are a couple of critters to tend to and a few errands to run. I have no idea what the day will hold or bring. Knowing what I know, I'll have a few smiles and laughs; I always do, mainly because I've learned to make my own fun.

Still, I wish she was here.